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This comprehensive history traces the evolution of modern Mozambique, from its early modern origins in the Indian Ocean trading system and the Portuguese maritime empire to the fifteen-year civil war that followed independence and its continued after effects.

Though peace was achieved in 1992 through international mediation, Mozambique’s remarkable recovery has shown signs of stalling. Malyn Newitt explores the historical roots of Mozambican disunity and hampered development, beginning with the divisive effects of the slave trade, the drawing of colonial frontiers in the 1890s and the lasting particularities of the provinces.

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Following the nationalist guerrillas’ victory against the Portuguese in 1975, these regional divisions resurfaced in a civil war pitting the south against the north and centre. The settlement of the early 1990s is now under threat from a revived insurgency, and the ghosts of the past remain.

This book seeks to distil this complex history, and to understand why, twenty-five years after the Peace Accord, Mozambicans still remain among the poorest people in the world.

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About the author

Malyn Newitt was Deputy Vice Chancellor of Exeter University and first holder of the Charles Boxer Chair at King’s College London. He is author of more than twenty books on Portugal and Portuguese colonial history including Portugal in Africa: The Last Hundred Years (1981), A History of Mozambique (1994), and Emigration and the Sea (2015). He retired in 2005.

A Short History of Mozambique is published by Jonathan Ball Publishers